Bethel 10k & Training Update

This Saturday I will be participating in the 2nd annual Bethel 10k. I did this race last year as well, and by some stroke of luck, I won my age division (I’ll spare the details of that). This year I qualify for the next age bracket up in the 35-39 age group and I hope to beat last year’s time by at least 3 minutes. I finished last year with a 58:30‘ish time and this year I am shooting for a 55 minute time. Since I am more familiar with the course I should feel better about it this time around. Also, I have run the course twice in the past couple months, and most recently I ran most of the course (and a little extra) only yesterday.

For those who are unfamiliar with the metric system here’s the simple breakdown. The 10k race is 6.2 miles. Yesterday’s run was 7.24 miles and I managed to maintain a close to race pace for all of that, finishing with a 9:13/mile pace. Since I am not running today and am only planning on a 3 miler tomorrow, I should be well rested and ready to take on the challenge of dropping those three minutes well before crossing the finish line in Burke Park sometime around 9:00 a.m. Saturday morning.

Training Update:
Much to my chagrin, I found out last night that I will be unable to participate in the USAF half marathon in September. I waited a bit too long to get registered for the event and it was full as of yesterday. My hopes of posting a sub two hour time for a half marathon will have to wait for another race. However, with this tinge of bad news comes the hope of something new and exciting. I was already prepared to do a 20 mile run the week before USAF, and now I will be able to come pretty close to that and run a race at the same time. After the disappointment set in for a while last night I decided to do some research. As it turns out there is a 27k race the week I am slated to run 20 miles. Yes, this races is a tad short of the 20 miles (17 miles = 27k), but I think I will be able to make up those miles either before or after the race. This works out perfect for me in a couple of ways. #1 registration for USAF half would have cost about $75, #2 the race takes place at Caesar’s Creek and will “sort of” be on the way to a family get together, #3 in lieu of the $75 USAF entrance fee I will only pay $9 for this other race (nice savings), #4 I still get to put in the miles, but instead of me running by myself I will have a group of runners with me as an added bonus (and hopefully make some new running friends). All in all, I’m a happy runner and have made the best out of a somewhat bad situation.